The present invention pertains to the field of removing residual mercury from recycled lamp parts, and, in particular, lamp glass.
Currently, recyclers of mercury-containing lamps produce a glass bi-product with residual mercury at a level of between about 0.5 parts per million to 4 parts per million. A representative lamp recycling machine is disclosed by Sewill et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,683,041, issued Nov. 4, 1997, incorporated herein by reference. The amount of residual mercury can limit the options available for disposal or reuse of the lamp parts and, in particular, lamp glass. The reuse of the lamp glass is particularly limited by the residual mercury levels if the glass is to be reused without remelting.